Mortgagee sales slip slightly in October

Whilst the number of recorded mortgagee sales slipped in October from the high of 343 in September they still remain historically high. A total of 298 sales were recorded in October taking the year to date figure to 2,465 - for the month this represents a 71% increase on the same month last year.

The chart above clearly shows not only the significant levels of sales in each of the months of 2009, but also the fact that this time last year marked the beginning of the steep rise in sales of mortgagee properties. This will provide the opportunity in the coming quarter to assess the year on year comparison more accurately.

The first 10 months of 2009 has seen 2,465 sales - this compares to 964 in the same period of 2008 and just 370 in the first 10 months of 2007 clearly highlighting the significant fall out of the recessionary impact of unemployment and tighter monetary policy and the consequential effect on heavily leveraged investors.

The scale of the rise in mortgagee sales can be best seen in this chart below showing the full history by month since from 2006 when a monthly total of 50 would have seemed high.

The make up of the sales in October comprise a mix of single family homes as multiple property portfolios (more than 5 properties owned by a single entity). The impact of the recession is certainly forecasted by Terralink to continue to see high levels of mortgagee sales into 2010.

Whilst sales levels have continued to rise the number of listings of mortgagee properties on the market has begun to stabilise in the current year with the level of interest as measured by the keyword search of mortgagee showing signs of falling in the last 3 months - these statistics are presented in recent posts on the Unconditional blog on the realestate.co.nz website.